Sumerian Fleet - Just Pressure

Sumerian Fleet - Just Pressure
It was inevitable that electronic artists would eventually start mining late '80s industrial and EBM (and various other "wave" sounds) for inspiration, having practically exhausted these genres' earlier roots over the last decade or so. Sumerian Fleet, a trio made up of Dutch mainstays Alden Tyrell, Mr Pauli and vocalist Zarkoff, revels in this period on its debut album, Just Pressure. While early wave tracks can be delicate and eerily pretty, this record is all about testosterone and excess.

Well, relative excess, anyway. There's no denying Just Pressure is a muscular effort, one that really nails the moment when industrial merged into industrial rock (you could fool anyone into believing it was recorded in 1988). But for the modern DJ, it has enough purpose-built details—i.e. simple dance floor hooks—to link it to the recent resurgences of new beat and early trance (as well as early house, electro and whatever else). The rigid, tensely arpeggiated "Unfulfilled Desire" captures this especially well, as do the perky freestyle synth stabs on "On To You," which feel smilingly sinister atop its chug. Sumerian Fleet's style is dated, but it's helped out by its sense of humor. "Orbiting," for example, contains this fantastic sci-fi-ism: "the ground control says machines don't dream / but my A.I. shuts down sometimes / it just shuts down." Even the plaintive story of loss on "Gone For Good" feels a little tongue-in-cheek, thanks in part to Zarkoff's campy, slightly accented delivery.

For the most part this humor is less jokey than it is nihilistic, delivered with a knowing sneer. It's the perfect accompaniment to the record's pounding rhythms, pulsing synths and funereal guitar echo. There is something sickeningly upfront about Just Pressure—its environment is suffocatingly seedy, nasty and hellish. Zarkoff ably sums this up on "Unfulfilled Desire": "All the world's a stage / I got a role to play / And I'm feeling kind of desperate / I know that by the time / I finish all my lines / You won't be there anymore." The record is suffused with that titular pressure, and the pervasive sense of claustrophobia is all it needs to push beyond pastiche.

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Dark Entries was launched in 2009 to release out of print and unreleased underground electronic and post punk music from the 70s/80s/90s as well as contemporary bands referencing those sounds.
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